Disney may offer a discounted bundle of Hulu, ESPN+ and its new streaming service

Disney may offer its customers the option to purchase a discounted
bundle of its three streaming apps — Hulu, Disney’s upcoming streaming
service and ESPN+ — according to comments made by Disney CEO Bob Iger
during the company’s’ earnings call this week. He said Disney would
rather keep the three properties separate, rather than trying to combine
them into a more robust “aggregation play,” so as to better address
cord cutters’ desire to pick-and-choose the services they want.

The company will own 60 percent of Hulu when its $71.3 billion deal to
acquire 21st Century Fox closes. It already owns ESPN, which now offers a
streaming service called ESPN+, and is launching its own Disney-branded
streaming service in 2019 that will feature Pixar, Marvel, Disney,
Lucasfilm (Star Wars) and, eventually, it now says, National Geographic
content.

While Disney’s service is meant to be more family-friendly, Hulu will
cater to a more adult market. And the plan is to keep those two
separate.

Iger had previously said the idea that a bundle could exist in the
future wasn’t out of the question, but had not been definite about
Disney’s plans in that area.

Now, he’s making it more clear that Disney believes there’s value in
offering a discounted bundle of its services, rather than combining all
their content under one roof.

“So rather than one, let’s call it, gigantic aggregated play, we’re
going to bring to the market what we’ve already brought to market [with
the] sports play. I’ll call it Disney Play, which is more
family-oriented. And then, of course, there’s Hulu. And they will
basically be designed to attract different tastes and different segment
or audience demographics,” Iger explained, in response to a question
about whether or not it would ever build an aggregated streaming app
instead of pursuing the different market segments.

“If a consumer wants all three, ultimately, we see an opportunity to
package them from a pricing perspective,” Iger continued. “But it could
be that a consumer just wants sports or just wants family or just wants
the Hulu offering, and we want to be able to offer that kind of
flexibility to consumers…” he said.

In addition to this potential bundling deal, the company took the
opportunity to divulge a few more details about Disney’s streaming
service this week.

It noted, for example, that it will have less content that its rival
Netflix, but its price point will also reflect that — meaning, it will
cost less than Netflix.

“We will be launching the Disney app into the market probably in about a
year — sometime the end of calendar 2019,” Iger had told investors.
“We’re going to walk before we run, as it relates to volume of content,
because it takes time to build the kind of content library that
ultimately we intend to build,” he said.

“We feel that it does not have to have anything close to the volume of
what Netflix…And the price, by the way, will also reflect a lower volume
of product,” said Iger.

He also re-confirmed the service’s lineup will initially include a
10-episode, live-action Star Wars series from director Jon Favreau that
cost $100 million; new episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars; and new series
based on existing IP like Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” and
Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.”

Plus, the service will stream Disney’s upcoming slate of films like
Marvel’s “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers 4,” “Star Wars: Episode IX” and the
live-action remakes of “Dumbo,” Lady and the Tramp,” “The Lion King”
and “The Sword in the Store.”

“Ultimately, National Geographic will be a contributor,” Iger noted at one point.

According to an NYT profile of Ricky Strauss, the Disney exec charged
with programming the new service, it will also include an original film,
“Timmy Failure,” which is based on the best-selling book series about a
“comically self-confident boy detective.”

The report said that at least nine movies are in production or advanced
development, with budgets ranging from $20 million to $60 million.

This includes a period adventure story about a sled dog called “Togo;” a
remake of “Three Men and a Baby;” “The Paper Magician,” which takes
places at a school for magic; “Noelle,” starring Anna Kendrick as
Santa’s daughter; “Stargirl,” based on a young adult novel; and a
version of “Don Quixote,” The NYT additionally reported.

There will “probably” be a new Muppets show and Marvel-themed shows, too, it said.
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